Hillary Clinton holds a commanding lead over Barack Obama in California as the Democratic presidential contest heads toward the Feb. 5 primary, a new statewide poll has found. John McCain’s resurgent campaign claimed a slim lead among Republicans, with a trio of candidates competing to challenge him.

The Los Angeles Times/CNN/Politico poll, conducted Jan. 11-13 by Opinion Research Corporation, demonstrated the extreme fluidity of the race, particularly on the Republican side. Six in 10 Republicans said they might change candidates in the next three weeks. Among Democrats, four in 10 were waffling.

As things stand now, Clinton leads Obama 47 percent to 31 percent among voters judged likely to cast ballots in California. A third candidate, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, was a distant third with 10 percent.

The poll provides the first public glimpse of the race in the nation’s most populous state since the initial round of contests in Iowa and New Hampshire began to winnow the field.

As she did in New Hampshire, where she eked out a win over Obama last Tuesday, Clinton held onto a sturdy margin among registered Democrats. But the New York senator also opened a strong lead over her colleague from Illinois among independent voters. Registered voters who have declined to state a party will be able to cast ballots in California’s Democratic primary, but not in the GOP contest.

The Republican race is, at this stage, far more uncertain. Among likely voters, Arizona Sen. McCain was ahead at 20 percent, with Mitt Romney at 16 percent, Rudy Giuliani at 14 percent and Mike Huckabee at 13 percent. All four were within the poll’s margin of sampling error.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas had 8 percent and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson was at 6 percent. Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine, Calif., did not register on the poll.

Overall, Republicans judged McCain to be the GOP candidate best positioned to defeat the eventual Democratic nominee, and — by a broad margin — listed him as the candidate most possessing honesty and integrity.

The survey interviewed 1,054 registered voters, including 384 likely to vote in the Democratic primary and 255 Republican likely voters.

The margin of sampling error was 5 points among people likely to vote in the Democratic primary and 6 points among Republican likely voters.